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This article deals with one specific type of performance
issue that applications may experience with Microsoft SQL Server: the run-time
recompilation of stored procedures. If you are troubleshooting a performance
issue, but you have not determined that this is the precise source of your
problem, refer to the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base before
proceeding:

This article assumes that you have used that
article to narrow down the scope of the problem, and that you have captured a
SQL Server Profiler trace with the specific events and data columns detailed
within it.

When a user executes a stored procedure, if it is not
already available in cache, SQL Server loads the procedure and compiles a query
plan. The compiled plan is saved in cache and is reused by subsequent callers
of the stored procedure until some action occurs to invalidate the plan and
force a recompilation. The following actions may cause recompilation of a
stored procedure plan:

Use of a WITH RECOMPILE clause in the CREATE PROCEDURE or
EXECUTE statement.

Schema changes to any of the referenced objects, including
adding or dropping constraints, defaults, or rules.

Running sp_recompile for a table referenced by the procedure.

Restoring the database containing the procedure or any of
the objects the procedure references (if you are performing cross-database
operations).

Sufficient server activity causing the plan to be aged out
of cache.

All these reasons for recompiling a stored procedure did exist
in earlier versions, and caused the plan to recompile before beginning
execution of the procedure. In SQL Server 7.0, a new behavior is introduced
that may cause a stored procedure to recompile during execution. This new
behavior ensures that the optimizer always has the best possible plan for each
specific statement within a procedure. The following events may cause a
run-time recompilation of a stored procedure:

A sufficient percentage of data changes in a table that is
referenced by the stored procedure.

In some cases, the cost of recompiling the stored procedure
is more than the benefit derived from doing so, especially for large
procedures. It is very important to note that when a recompilation is
triggered, the entire batch or procedure is recompiled. This means that performance
degradation is directly proportional to the size of the procedure or batch. For
more information about this topic, see the "Transact-SQL Tips" topic in SQL
Server Books Online.

The following information in this article focuses on
identifying the cause of run-time stored procedure recompilations and discusses
methods you can use to prevent them.

Best Practice

It is best to owner qualify stored procedure names when you
execute a procedure. This allows for better clarity and easier reuse of the
existing execution plan by the current user. For example, if a user who is not
the database owner (dbo) executes a dbo-owned stored procedure (called myProc in this example) in the pubs database, use the following statement:

exec dbo.myProc

Instead of this:

exec myProc

This technique eliminates confusion about other possible versions of
the procedure by different owners from a coding and maintenance standpoint, and
also allows SQL Server to access the execution plan for the specific procedure
more directly.

By not qualifying the owner name, SQL Server enters
the compile code and acquires a COMPILE lock on the procedure. However,
eventually it determines that a new plan is not required (assuming no other
reasons apply), so it does NOT recompile the plan at this point due to the lack
of qualification. However, the extra step of getting a COMPILE lock on the
procedure can cause blocking contention in severe situations. Refer to Q263889
INF: SQL Blocking Due to [[COMPILE]] Locks for more details on this situation.

If you owner qualify the procedure call with owner.procedure, you do
not need to acquire the compile lock, so the contention is reduced.

Identifying and Resolving Issues

If you have not already done so, refer to the following article
in the Microsoft Knowledge Base for details on capturing Profiler data to help
analyze the performance of your system:

View the Profiler Data

SQL Server Profiler includes an SP:Recompile event that you can use to monitor the number of recompiles
occurring. The SP:Recompile event occurs whenever a stored procedure recompiles during
execution.

Group the Profiler trace by Event Class

On the File menu, click Properties.

On the Data Columns tab, use the UP button to move the Event Class and Text under the Groups heading, with Event Class first. Use the DOWN button to remove all other columns under the Groups heading.

Click OK.

Check the number of the SP:Recompile events.

You can expand the SP:Recompile group to see
the details of the individual occurrences. The Text column of the event indicates the name of the stored procedure
that recompiled. If multiple procedures are causing recompiles, they are sorted
by the number of occurrences. If you have a large number of SP:Recompile events and you are experiencing high CPU usage, focus on
resolving the procedures that have the highest number of recompiles. Note the
system process ID (SPID) and Start Time of the SP:Recompile event for one instance of the particular stored procedure(s) and
follow the steps below.

If you do not see any SP:Recompile events, but you are still experiencing a performance problem, see
the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

On the Data Columns tab, use the DOWN button to remove all other columns under the Groups heading.

On the Events tab, remove all events except SP:Starting, SP:StmtStarting, SP:Recompile, and SP:Completed. If you did not capture the SP:StmtStarting event, you can substitute SP:StmtCompleted, but do not include both because doing so doubles the amount of
information you need to look through.

If you have identified a particular instance of a
stored procedure recompilation to examine, you can limit the data you view to
the specific SPID and time frame of the occurrence by using the Filters tab.

Click OK.

The SP:Recompile event will be raised directly following the SP:StmtStarted event of the stored procedure statement that caused the
recompilation. After the recompile event is finished, you will see a repeat of
the SP:StmtStarted event, indicating that the statement is executing with the newly
generated plan.

If you execute this code in Query Analyzer and view the above events in
a Profiler trace, you will see the following sequence:

Collapse this tableExpand this table

Event Class

Text

SP:Starting

RecompProc

SP:StmtStarting

create table #t (a int)

SP:StmtStarting

select * from #t

SP:Recompile

RecompProc

SP:StmtStarting

select * from #t

SP:Completed

RecompProc

You can tell immediately that the statement that
caused the recompilation was:

select * from #t

Because it appears both before and after the SP:Recompile event.

If you had captured only the SP:StmtCompleted event, but not the SP:StmtStarting event, the SP:Recompile will show directly before the statement which caused it as
below:

Collapse this tableExpand this table

Event Class

Text

SP:Starting

RecompProc

SP:Recompile

RecompProc

SP:StmtCompleted

select * from #t

SP:Completed

RecompProc

You can see that the SP:Recompile event is raised before the SP:StmtCompleted event for the "select * from #t" statement, which caused the
recompilation. This makes sense, as the statement can not be completed until
after the new query plan is generated for the recompile. All the rest of the
examples in this article use the SP:StmtStarting event. If you have captured only the SP:StmtCompleted event, just remember to view the statement after the SP:Recompile, as explained above.

Note that if you execute this
particular stored procedure multiple times, SQL Server will reuse the existing
plan for this procedure. You will only see the recompile event on the first
execution of the procedure, or if you drop and re-create the procedure each
time you execute the script. The reason for the recompilation in this specific
case is discussed in the "Recompilations Due to Interleaving Data Definition
Language (DDL) and Data Manipulation Language (DML) Operations" section of this
article; this is simply an example to illustrate how to easily determine which
statement is causing the recompilation.

Recompilations Due to Row Modifications

If a sufficient percentage of data has changed in a table
referenced by a stored procedure since the time the original query plan was
generated, SQL Server will recompile the stored procedure to ensure that it has
a plan based on the most up-to-date statistical data. As an example, consider
the following stored procedure:

For the second execution of the RowModifications procedure, you will see the following events in
Profiler:

Collapse this tableExpand this table

Event Class

Text

SP:Starting

RowModifications

SP:StmtStarting

create table #t (a int, b
char(10))

SP:StmtStarting

select * from #t

SP:StmtStarting

insert #t select * from
SomeTable

SP:StmtStarting

select count(*) from #t where a =
37

SP:Recompile

RowModifications

Auto-UpdateStats

a

SP:StmtStarting

select count(*) from #t where a =
37

SP:Completed

RowModifications

NOTE: The first execution will also show a SP:Recompile event for the "select * from #t" statement. The reason for the
recompilation in this specific case is discussed in the "Recompilations Due to
Interleaving Data Definition Language (DDL) and Data Manipulation Language
(DML) Operations" section of this article. For this example, focus on the SP:Recompile shown above because it occurs every time the procedure is
executed.

In this example, "select count(*) from #t where a = 37"
causes a recompilation of the procedure due to the change in the number of rows
since the table was created. The presence of the Auto-UpdateStats event confirms that the recompilation was due to row
modifications. The Text column indicates the column for which the statistics were
modified.

When the #t table was created, the number of rows is zero.
The plan for the original "select * from #t" is developed with that row count,
as well as the plan for the "select count (*)" query. However, before the
"select count(*)" is executed, 1,000 new rows are inserted into the #t table.
Because a sufficient amount of data has been changed, the optimizer recompiles
the procedure to ensure that it chooses the most efficient plan for the
statement. This recompilation will occur on every execution of the stored
procedure because the insertion of 1,000 rows will always be viewed as
significant enough to warrant recompilation.

The algorithm SQL Server
uses to determine whether a plan should be recompiled is the same algorithm
used for auto-update statistics as described in the following article in the
Microsoft Knowledge Base:

In the example above, the stored procedure is small
enough that the recompilation would not have a noticeable effect on
performance. However, if you have a large stored procedure that performs
similar activities resulting in multiple recompilations, you may notice a
performance degradation.

The following methods exist to counteract
recompilations due to row modifications:

Execute the statement using sp_executesql. This is the preferred method. Statements executed using the
sp_executesql stored procedure are not compiled as part of the stored procedure
plan. Therefore, when executing the statement, SQL Server will be free to
either use an existing plan in cache for the statement or create a new one at
run time. In either case, the plan for the calling stored procedure is
unaffected and does not have to be recompiled.

The EXECUTE statement
will have the same effect; however, it is not recommended. Using the EXECUTE
statement is not as efficient as using sp_executesql because it does not allow for parameterization of the
query.

The RowModifications procedure given above can be written to use sp_executesql as follows:

Notice that there are no SP:Recompile events for the RowModifications2 procedure. There are complete SP:Starting to SP:Completed events for the sp_executesql call context, and an Auto-UpdateStats event for column a. However, because this call is out of the context of the stored
procedure, the RowModifications2 procedure does not need to be recompiled in this case.

For more information on using the sp_executesql stored procedure, see the "sp_executesql (T-SQL)" and "Using
sp_executesql" topics in SQL Server Books Online.

Use sub-procedures to execute the statements that are
causing the recompilations. In this case, the statement may still cause a
recompilation, but instead of recompiling the large calling stored procedure,
it will only recompile the small sub-procedure.

Use the KEEP PLAN option. Temporary tables have
special rules regarding recompilations which, in some cases, can be more
stringent than the default recompilation algorithm. You can use the KEEP PLAN
option to relax the temporary table threshold back to the default algorithm.
For more information, see the "Avoiding Recompilation by Using the KEEP PLAN
Option" section of this article.

NOTE: The RowModifications procedure is a very simplified example of a procedure that is
recompiled due to row modifications. Please review the following caveats
concerning this example:

Although the example uses a temporary table, this situation
applies to stored procedures that reference permanent tables as well. If a
sufficient amount of data in a referenced table has been altered since the
query plan was generated, the stored procedure will be recompiled. The
differences in how temporary tables are considered for recompilation purposes
are described in the "Avoiding Recompilation by Using the KEEP PLAN Option"
section of this article.

The first executions of the above two procedures also cause
a recompilation on the first select from the temporary table #t. The reasons
for this recompilation are discussed in the "Recompilations Due to Interleaving
Data Definition Language (DDL) and Data Manipulation Language (DML) Operations"
section of this article.

A "select count(*) from #t" statement was used in this
example, rather than a simple "select * from #t" statement. To avoid excessive
recompilations, SQL Server does not consider recompiling "trivial plans" (such
as a select * from a table) due to row modifications.

If you execute this code in Query Analyzer and view the above events in
a Profiler trace, you will see the following sequence:

Collapse this tableExpand this table

Event Class

Text

SP:Starting

Interleave

SP:StmtStarting

create table t1 (a int)

SP:StmtStarting

select * from t1

SP:Recompile

Interleave

SP:StmtStarting

select * from t1

SP:StmtStarting

create index idx_t1 on t1(a)

SP:StmtStarting

select * from t1

SP:Recompile

Interleave

SP:StmtStarting

select * from t1

SP:StmtStarting

create table t2 (a int)

SP:StmtStarting

select * from t2

SP:Recompile

Interleave

SP:StmtStarting

select * from t2

SP:Completed

Interleave

In this case, the stored procedure is recompiled
three times during execution. To understand why this happens, consider how the
optimizer develops a plan for this stored procedure:

During initial compilation of the procedure, the tables t1
and t2 do not exist. Therefore, no plan for the queries referencing these
tables can be created. They must be generated at execution time.

As the procedure executes for the first time, the first
step is to create table t1. The next step is a select from table t1 -- which
there is no plan for. Therefore, the procedure is recompiled at this point to
develop a plan for the SELECT statement. A plan is generated for the current
select from t1, as well as the select from t1 after the index creation. No plan
can be generated for the select from t2 because t2 still does not exist
yet.

The next step is to create an index on t1. Following that,
another select is performed on t1, which now has a plan from the first
recompile. However, because the schema of t1 has been changed since that plan
was generated, the procedure must be recompiled again to generate a new plan
for the select from t1. And because t2 still does not exist, no plan can be
generated for the select from t.

Next, the table t2 is created and the select from t2 is
executed. Because no plan exists for statement, the procedure is recompiled a
final time.

These recompilations occur on every execution of the stored
procedure. To reduce the recompilations, modify the procedure to do all DDL
operations first, followed by DML operations, as shown in the following:

The first execution of the NoInterleave procedure will show the following events in Profiler:

Collapse this tableExpand this table

Event Class

Text

SP:Starting

NoInterleave

SP:StmtStarting

create table t1 (a int)

SP:StmtStarting

create index idx_t1 on t1(a)

SP:StmtStarting

create table t2 (a int)

SP:StmtStarting

select * from t1

SP:Recompile

NoInterleave

SP:StmtStarting

select * from t1

SP:StmtStarting

select * from t1

SP:StmtStarting

select * from t2

SP:Completed

NoInterleave

In this case all of the DDL statements are done up
front. The optimizer compiles this procedure as follows:

During initial compilation of the procedure, the tables t1
and t2 do not exist. Therefore, no plan for the queries referencing these
tables can be created. They must be generated at execution time.

The first steps the procedure performs are the DDL
operations, creating tables t1 and t2, as well as the index on t1.

The next step is the first select from t1. Because there is
no plan available for this SELECT statement, the procedure is recompiled.
Because all of the objects exist, plans are generated for all of the SELECT
statements in the procedure at this time.

The rest of the procedure executes using the plans
generated. Because there are no changes to the referenced objects, there is no
need to recompile the procedure further.

NOTE: The second and subsequent executions make use of the existing
query plan and cache, and do not result in any recompilations at all.
Procedures that create, alter, or drop tables should be modified to ensure that
all DDL statements are located at the beginning of the procedure.

Recompilations Due to Certain Temporary Table Operations

Use of temporary tables in a stored procedure may cause the
stored procedure to be recompiled every time the procedure is
executed.

To avoid this, change the stored procedure so that it meets
the following requirements:

All statements that contain the name of a temporary table
refer to a temporary table created in the same stored procedure, and not in a
calling or called stored procedure, or in a string executed using the EXECUTE
statement or sp_executesql stored procedure.

All statements that contain the name of a temporary table
appear syntactically after the temporary table in the stored procedure or
trigger.

There are no DECLARE CURSOR statements whose SELECT
statements reference a temporary table.

All statements that contain the name of any temporary table
precede any DROP TABLE statement that references a temporary table.

DROP TABLE statements are not needed for temporary tables created in a stored
procedure. The tables are automatically dropped when the procedure has
completed.

No statements creating a temporary table (such as CREATE
TABLE or SELECT... INTO) appear in a control-of-flow statement such as IF...
ELSE or WHILE.

Avoiding Recompilation by Using the KEEP PLAN Option

Temporary table usage within stored procedures introduces certain
complexities for the query optimizer. The row count and statistical information
of the tables can vary dramatically throughout the lifetime of the stored
procedure execution. To ensure that the optimizer uses the best plan in all
cases concerning temporary tables, a special algorithm was developed to be more
aggressive with recompilations. The algorithm states that if a temporary table
created with a stored procedure has changed more than six times, the procedure
will be recompiled when the next statement references the temporary table.

In this case, you will see the following events in Profiler for the
second execution:

Collapse this tableExpand this table

Event Class

Text

SP:Starting

useKeepPlan

SP:StmtStarting

create table #t (a int)

SP:StmtStarting

- The seven insert statements -

SP:StmtStarting

select count(*) from #t1

SP:Recompile

useKeepPlan

SP:StmtStarting

select count(*) from #t1

SP:Completed

useKeepPlan

The procedure is recompiled on the select that occurs
after the seven changes to the temporary table #t.

This aggressive
recompilation is helpful in cases where the changes to the data distribution of
the temporary table can dramatically affect the optimal query plan for the
statement referencing it. However, in the case of large procedures that modify
temporary tables frequently, but not in a significant manner, the
recompilations may result in slower overall performance. The KEEP PLAN option
of the SELECT statement was introduced for this situation.

KEEP PLAN
eliminates stored procedure recompilations caused by more than six changes to
temporary tables within the procedure and reverts back to the standard
algorithm for recompilation due to row modifications discussed above in the
"Recompilations Due to Row Modifications" section of this article. KEEP PLAN
does not prevent recompilations altogether, it simply prevents those caused by
more than six changes to temporary tables referenced in the procedure. In the
example above, if you remove the comment from the "option (KEEP PLAN)" line in
the stored procedure, the SP:Recompile event will not be generated.

If you remove the comment
from the "option (KEEP PLAN)" line in the above code and execute it, you will
see the following events in Profiler:

Collapse this tableExpand this table

Event Class

Text

SP:Starting

useKeepPlan

SP:StmtStarting

create table #t (a int)

SP:StmtStarting

- The seven insert statements -

SP:StmtStarting

select count(*) from #t1 option (KEEP
PLAN)

SP:Completed

useKeepPlan

Note there is no SP:Recompile event.

Recompilations Due to Certain SET Statements Executed in Stored Procedure

The following five SET options are set to ON by default:

ANSI_DEFAULTS

ANSI_NULLS

ANSI_PADDING

ANSI_WARNINGS

CONCAT_NULL_YIELDS_NULL

If you execute the SET statement to set any of these options to
OFF, the stored procedure will be recompiled every time it runs. The reason for
this is that changing these options may affect the query result that triggered
the recompilation.

Replacing the SET option with any one of the five options listed
above will show the same results. Also, using the option of keep plan here
won't help to avoid the recompilation because the cause of the recompilation is
from the SET statement.

The recommended way to avoid the
recompilation is not to use any of these five SET statement in a stored
procedure. For additional information, see the following article in the
Microsoft Knowledge Base: